


last night sipped the sunset

by Believerindaydreams (deepandlovelydark), sybilius



Series: count to ten and run for cover [10]
Category: Il buono il brutto il cattivo | The Good The Bad and The Ugly (1966)
Genre: Dreams, Fluff, Gatehouse, Guitar, Letters, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Road Trip, Slice of Life, Tornado Mention, Tumblr Fic, Tweechik, chopping wood, implied gun violence, mostly tooth-rotting fluff, rope play, tags updated as fic is added :)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22673920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/Believerindaydreams, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: And after a time, the only stories left are those in which the trio gently grow old together. But that suits them just the same.Series of loosely connected fics, mostly around the trio's lovely gatehouse. Saved from tumblr to here.
Relationships: Angel Eyes/"Blondie" | The Man with No Name/Tuco Ramirez
Series: count to ten and run for cover [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1289720
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. scene in the back corner of some godforsaken church bazaar

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Jethro Tull's [Wondring Aloud](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqTJSUeZY98), which is very suitable for them at this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How Blondie acquired a guitar :)

“Help!”

“I wish,” Angel Eyes says, his tone crisply redolent of menace, “you wouldn’t say that. Unless it’s a genuine emergency.”

“I think this counts as an emergency.” The vast pile of pillows shifts, but only slightly; Angel’s already prying away a few colorful cushions. Hell of a predicament…

“When a sign says ‘don’t touch’, Tuco- Blondie, are you going to help at all?”

“I’m sure he can find his own way out.” Keeping this pose, this lazily elegant position against the wall of this none-too-clean basement has abruptly turned from a casual lean to a strictly necessary decision. He’s trying very hard not to wheeze with laughter, and if Angel was looking at him instead of tugging through bolsters- why, it’d be just about impossible.

“I’m sure I can too,” Tuco’s voice says, accompanied by the elaborate wiggling of the one shoe still visible. “That doesn’t mean I won’t appreciate a little attention.”

Bit of an edge there, maybe he has pushed his partner’s patience a little too far. By the old routine, he’s got about five seconds to come up with a damned good excuse. “Hey, look, here’s a guitar. How about I play you out, huh?”

Angel, who’s making stolidly steady progress on a tangled bedsheet, pauses just long enough for a “what the hell” expression. Those craggy features are so wasted on easy smiles, these days.

It amuses him in some place he’ll never quite get around to admitting to their fallen and forgiven- the tickle of starting up a nice, chunky piece of nonsense, him and Tuco matching each other for wit. Playing with fire.

“Oh, sure,” Tuco says, his voice taking on a heightened, slightly raspy tone. “Go on, play the guitar for siete anos why don’t you. Play your heart out with longing for the good and noble Tuco Ramirez, left to die unloved and unmourned beneath a pile of charity bedclothes.”

It’s a real shame Angel hasn’t uncovered more than the legs yet, Blondie reflects. Tuco would be even more delighted to see that exasperated bewilderment than he is.

“Guess I’d better bear witness, if nothing else- solemn troubadour and all that, with my faithful Spanish guitar to keep me company.” Thing’s ancient, probably hasn’t been tuned in years, but Blondie manages to pick out a note. Two, three- maybe he remembers more about this than he figured, huh-

then the string snaps violently, drawing blood from where it whiplashes over his hand, and maybe if he was expecting that kind of hurt he’d have kept his mouth shut- but he can’t manage it. Not now, not in a goddamn church basement the day before the Christmas bazaar, this is the last time he was expecting the universe’s pop quiz on blood and morality-

not that he really has time to fret, what with the explosion of feathers. Tuco hauls himself upright in remarkably short order, anxiously helpful. “You okay? Not too bad?”

“Not too bad-” the words come quick enough, just by way of reassurance, but then he catches sight of Angel’s face and swallows down any nonsense. “Could be better. Guess there’s enough fabric lying around to bandage it, anyway- that piece of linen, that’ll do.”

Not enough effort to ward off a harrumph, apparently; Angel drops to the ground to neatly collapse into the pillows. “Going shopping with you two, I swear it takes years off my lifespan….”

“It’s not really shopping,” Tuco says, some measure of cheeky even as he’s winding the linen. “I’m sure my brother won’t charge us, especially after you’ve been injured by his vile money-changing efforts, you know?”

“You broke it, you buy it!” Pablo shouts. Safe in his perch by the cash register.

“…I am consumed with horror, at the sudden realization what you two must have been like as teenagers.”

Tuco peers down at Angel’s limp stillness. “Horrified, eh.”

“All-encompassing distress,” Angel agrees. Puts his hat over his face and disappears into a feather pile.

“…I think I like this guitar,” Blondie surprises himself by saying.

“You would,” Tuco says, edging in for a quick fondle. “I’ll buy you a new string for Christmas.”


	2. da capo al fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first story with Blondie's guitar :)

_ Dear Angel Eyes, _

_ I never thought I’d learn to play the guitar.  _

_ Well, once.  _

_ I was a kid once and I thought of a lot of things I could do then. But I brought it up to Tuco once and he laughed outright, I think I elbowed him in the ribs. We were young. It was a stupid hustle. He was right.  _

_ Part of it is I never thought I’d be any good; good enough to sell that kind of thing, so what was the point? And we didn’t have a car then, so carting around that busted up guitar hitchhiking didn’t sound all that great.  _

_ So I didn’t bring my guitar from home with me here– could give you an idea where here is, though when I get a stamp that might tell you.  _

_ Sorry I couldn’t tell you how far I was going. I still don’t know.  _

_ I miss that guitar, though. Miss the way the calluses I used to use on cards got shaped around what it takes to pluck out a tune. Miss the way Tuco would hum along with them, and you’d whistle. With the clicking of his knitting almost adding a bit of rhythm.  _

_ You two still feeding the pigeons Tuesdays?  _

_ It’s Tuesday here.  _

_ Do you still read poetry on Fridays without me?  _

_ I never thought to ask, usually I’m back before then. Knew this time I wouldn’t be. Tuco would tell you that when I wrote letters to him, I never tried to get at any kind of poetry. I thought about trying with you. I did actually. Those ended up in the fire.  _

_ Usually I’d tell Tuco I’m doing fine and the tent is holding up and I’m keeping out of the rain, so can you tell him that? I’ll send him something next. Well. If I get that far. Maybe I’ll turn around. The horizon keeps being as cryptic here as it is in Wisconsin. Sometimes I think I just needed a day to sit by the fire and watch that horrible lamp drip.  _

_ …okay, it’s not horrible. Don’t tell him I wrote that.  _

_ Yeah, this isn’t poetry.  _

_ Anyways if it takes a poem to say I miss you, and I hope I’m going to be back soon– yeah. This letter is what I got.  _

_ I love you, _

_ Blondie  _

*

Angel’s lips twitch, his gaze softening just so on the last few lines. He sits back in his rocking chair, exactly as he had a few weeks ago. Perhaps the lines at his eyes a bit deeper. Perhaps that was the firelight.

“How long after writing this did you leave?" 

"Soon as I couldn’t find stamps.”

Not soon enough is what comes to mind, but Blondie tilts his head and lets that thought slide to the floor. He’s here now. And though he started the drive with the restless grind in his bones and couldn’t shake it off no matter how far he went, now that he’s back it’s not quite as raw. So that counts for something. Maybe he just missed being warm at night, and Angel’s soup rather than half-heated beans.

But never mind any of that; does Angel look different? He studies his lover carefully, trying to pinpoint what’s different. Fiddling with his gloves. That’s a tell. 

“Did you worry I wouldn’t come back?”

“Course not. You’d always come back for him." 

"S'true.”

That much is true, but it’s not – quite what the letter is getting at either, and Blondie’s got a feeling that’s part of what brought him back. If he could just figure out what Angel meant by the way he drops his eyes, his lips turning down in a way that’s almost wry– it’s not like reading Tuco’s tells, or maybe he’s always read too far into those–

“Hey, Blondie! Why the long face, thought you washed that off with all that mud?” Tuco gestures theatrically from the open door, cheeks pinked from his visit to the priory proper to speak with Wallace. The fall chill sweeps in before he presses the door shut. 

Blondie grins easily back, “Just thinking, don’t you worry.”

“ _ Santa Maria _ , that’s like asking you to stop thinking.”

“Well, with the generous assumption that you two can enjoy each other’s presence for the moment, I’m going to go upstairs,” Angel announces, and that’s a bit unusual for him too. They were all three of them close at dinner, Blondie reasons. Angel takes the letter with him. 

Tuco shrugs, flopping down on the couch next to where Blondie leans against it from his seat on the floor, “All this couch to take up space on, and you’re still on the floor.”

“Mmm,” he lights a cigarillo, taking a drag before offering it to his partner, “Miss me then?”

“Missed this,” Tuco admits, grinning with the brown paper between his teeth. 

“Yeah,” Blondie leans his head back, and Tuco does card a hand through his hair before passing back the cigarillo. Blondie turns his head to the stairs. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone, “Was he– did he really do okay?”

“Who, Angel? Yeah. I mean apart from the day we needed more wood, he got a little funny when he came back from chopping it." 

Blondie blinks, the sensation of splinters catching on his neck rearing up. Bad memories. Old memories. Shit, if it was that– 

“Uh. When was that?”

“Now who’s worrying? It was about a week ago, he’s been fine. Hey, Blondie, you think Angel Eyes would really send you off like that, if it was that bad?”

Blondie has seen Angel do all kinds of things that were that bad, worse. But no, Tuco is right. He stretches his legs towards the fire, listening to the snap of the dry twigs. 

“Guess you’re right, yeah.”

“Well why don’t you go up there and ask him, if you’re so worried?” Tuco has gathered the red blanket all around himself, settling in for some kind of nap if you ask Blondie. Damnably reasonable, all of it. 

“In a minute,” Blondie does get up, then, wanders to their bedroom for the first time since he’s gotten back to the gatehouse. Angel keeps it neat. Without him to spread books and his long legs across the comforter, it stays unmarked for most of the day. He sits down on the deep green fabric, if nothing else just to make a crease in it. 

His guitar, in its case in the corner of the room. 

He takes it out, brushing off the thin layer of dust. Lets the strings dig into his fingertips, but doesn’t pull a sound out yet. The bedroom– it’s so empty it feels like it would swallow the first chord–

And then Tuco sneezes from the other room, and it’s not like the road, of course, those moments shatter blessedly as soon as they come. Blondie slings the guitar on his back, turns to mount the stairs to the attic. He thinks he might hear Tuco mumble, ‘serenade him’, just as he closes the door. 

Angel Eyes keeps only two lights in the attic, a standing light by the entrance, and a bright lamp on his study, that casts vivid shadows of his sharp profile against the frame of the roof. It’s a testament to years in the gatehouse, that Angel doesn’t stare him down as he mounts the stairs, keeps his attention on whatever calligraphic work he’s set himself to this month. 

“Hey. Um.”

“I just came back to my illuminations– in preparation for the next visit to Pablo, I suppose, and see what Wallace can sell with the jam–” he trails off, though – he’s left his gloves on the cherry wood, that’s usually a good sign. But he’s given up on the explanation, studying Blondie in earnest, “Something you need?”

“You know I came back for you too, right?” those damnable eyes. How on earth Manco ever had any poetry in him, under them. Angel breaks his gaze, stands up slowly, slips his arms around Blondie’s waist. Careful not to dislodge the guitar. Blondie tucks his chin on Angel’s shoulder. Feels lips softly press at his neck.

Blondie swallows, “Heard you chopped some wood. Sorry I didn’t leave enough here.”

“It’s all right now,” he smells like the cloves that went into the soup. Of course. 

“I guess…I’m going to go play the guitar. You going my way?”

Angel Eyes shakes his head by way of answer. But he follows. He follows, and Tuco picks Heart of Gold for Blondie to play, joking about learning the harmonica part sometime. Angel whistles it for them. And there is music. 

Blondie figures, maybe that’s what he was looking for on the road the whole time. 


	3. gone a week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some light Tuco angst, supportive partners <3

“We’re only leaving for a week,” Blondie says, arms crossed over his favourite second-hand hiking sweater. 

It’s a good sweater. Fraying a little at the sleeves, but sturdy wool that can take a bit of a beating, Blondie looks fine in it like he always does. 

Tuco sighs, lets the comforting familiarity of the sofa envelop him again. Blondie’s right enough- and it’s not even like they’ll be going that far away this time, not crossing a state border or anything- but he’s unusually reluctant to go for no reason that’ll let itself into his conscious awareness. Something heavier than attachment to home and hearth, the fond awareness of a place where he can weave a story around everything from the cellar coal scuttle to the elegant tracery on Angel’s favourite attic window. 

“You’re jumpy,” his lover says, filling up his pipe with a slowness that suggests they aren’t going anywhere for a while. 

Tuco breathes out a little, grateful to be reprieved. “It’s a- I don’t know, Angel. When I felt like this on a hustle, I’d give Blondie the signal to cut things short. Not run any more risks than we could help, to get out of dodge.”

“Way I remember it, I’d want to leave more times than you did,” Blondie says gently. His hands are cut up from the wood chopping he was doing earlier, still not callused properly after all their time here; as he reaches around to stroke Tuco’s knee, the skin catches and tears a little on rough blue denim. 

Tuco shivers, pulls back some- a match for Angel leaning forward from the rocker, his interest as ever caught by the slightest daub of blood. 

“Damn it,” Blondie says, sucking his palm. “Not the best omen for an expedition, I’ll admit that.” 

“Mountain’ll still be there next week. Or next year, if it comes to that,” Angel pronounces, blowing out a match with a mere whisper of breath. 

“That’s not the point either,” Tuco says. Petulantly, he can all but hear Pablo chiding him. “I don’t- I don’t want to stay and I don’t want to go. I mean, we’ve been putting this trip off long enough, it might as well be now as ever.” 

“Want me to go myself?” Blondie inquires; and for a heartbeat Tuco lets himself consider saying yes. Let him, let him go. 

“…I’d worry about you. I’d wear a hole around the kitchen, pacing until you came home.”

“Assuming I did,” Blondie says, with the blithe bleakness he craves indulging in. Angel’s cutting glare is sharp as diamond, but his partner’s like water, an edge sinks without trace. “I wonder if it’s the weather changing? Snow on the wind, you could be reacting to that.”

“…one more night, then,” Tuco says. Too aware of how long it’s been since he had to hustle for real, make things real to himself that are only half-so. “If it’s all clear tomorrow, we’ll go then, and I won’t complain.”

“Knowing you, that means ‘first rest stop on the hike,’” Blondie mutters; but his voice is gentle enough, the way his elbow digs into thigh and belly is soothing in its solidity. “Okay, if that’s the way you want it- assuming Angel doesn’t have any unexpected premonitions?”

“Doubt I’d know one if it came along and bit me,” Angel says, his voice just slightly hampered by the pipe. “I did assassinations on knowledge, Blondie, not raw instinct.”

“Don’t think you’re doing yourself enough credit there.”

“Possible,” Angel says, mellow enough. He’s not the same tightly-spoken shut-in who they’d met over cards so many years back. Blondie’s not that overwrought, burdened wreck either, and as for him-

as for him, he knows he must have changed some even if he can’t tell when or how. The brash hustler who staked everything on one beat-up film can in that easy careless way, that’s not him anymore. 

More to lose, every time they step outside their own front door- but they can’t live just in here, either. 

(If they were capable of that, he wouldn’t have come to need them like he does.)

“…I’ll make brownies,” Tuco says, deliberately as gravely as possible. “It’ll be nice to have brownies, if we decide to stick around up there a while. Or get lost.” 

“I never get lost.” Angel’s efficient, certain smile quivers under his mustache. 

“Famous last words,” Blondie mutters. 

And the convulsive grip of his partner’s hand around his own, it hurts like nothing but life itself. 


	4. tornado warning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some tooth-rotting fluff. This was actually incidentally written right after the end of 'bleeding', by deepandlovelydark :)

In his heart of hearts, Tuco’s come to rather like tornadoes.

Because Blondie still remembers how much they terrified a young newcomer, huddling in the monastery cellar and wailing like a siren; because Blondie’s told Angel Eyes, who listened with his usual serious attention for details. So whenever the radio warns about twisters, that high-pitched alert guaranteed to send the mildly nervous into high panic, he knows that’ll wipe the slate clear for the day. Angel Eyes will put away the many notes for his translation of Catullus, Blondie will abandon whatever half-baked project he’s tinkering with (there’s been a lot of those, from wood-carving to hand-rolled cigarettes. Some turn out better than others- the cigarettes, for instance, had been totally unsmokable.)

Everything else forgotten, in the attempt to cheer and comfort and reassure one slightly mislaid New Yorker- and it works. If they turn off the lights on purpose, there’ll be no outage to make him nervous; so his partners will close the storm shutters and light bright candles. Angel Eyes will take great and careful pleasure in brewing a thick hunter’s stew from scratch, scorning the canned stuff (none in the gatehouse, except that corned beef Blondie has such a taste for). Blondie will repeat the same hoary old stories about the storms this monastery has weathered, a faint trace of local pride impressing itself upon his slow familiar drawl. They’ll take turns holding him close, while he’s busy nestling under an unreasonable number of blankets. Watching the both of them with love.

At least, that’s the way it ought to be- but today Blondie isn’t here.

“Back to nature be damned,” Angel Eyes says, frowning. “Next time I’m making him bring a two-way radio.”

“He’ll be okay,” Tuco promises, not really sure why why he says it. They have very little idea where Blondie is right now, after all. As ever.

“I’m going after him. If he followed the creek like he said, it’s only twenty minutes away by car. I can be there and back again before the storm gets very bad-”

“If you found him right away. If you didn’t, then you’re out there in the thick of it too,” Tuco points out. “Sit down and panic quietly, will you? Like I’m doing.”

“This isn’t the way I respond to situations,” Angel Eyes says. Nearly in a sulk; but he lets Tuco pull him back down on the sofa, and strip off his gloves. “I plan in advance. I take careful precautions, so that I’m never caught in a situation where nothing I can do will make a difference. I should say- usually I plan.”

“There wasn’t any warning. I listened too, the weather forecasters didn’t see this coming. Sometimes you just can’t help it.”

“You’re more amenable than I am. Better suited for grace under pressure…” Angel clasps his hands around Tuco’s, hard and fixed in the position of prayer. It very nearly hurts, actually; but he’s pretty tough, Tuco reflects with contentment. Certainly tough enough to give his partner some comfort, when it’s needed.

“Blondie’s born to this,” he says. “You have to trust him- he’ll know to find a ditch, or stay low if he can’t find one. He’ll do what he needs to be safe.”

“If he dies out there, because I wasn’t there…”

“Then you’d die together,” Tuco says patiently. “And then I wouldn’t have anyone. Think of me for a change, huh?”

“You selfish, self-centred bastard,” Angel tells him; and almost smiles. The wind’s getting worse now, shutters creaking loudly. Tuco slides down into the sofa’s soft nap, looking fondly up at the man straddling his thighs. It’s a vulnerable position; but he has absolute faith that he’ll be respected, and that’s what makes the difference. “I don’t know why I’m worrying you like this- it ought to be the other way around.”

“But that’s me worrying when there’s nothing to worry about. If there is something, then I don’t so much. It makes a difference, you know?”

“…you know, years of arguing theology with Pablo about the inherent paradoxes of the Catholic mind, and it still doesn’t prepare me to follow all your swerves of logic. You mean, you’re worrying less now Blondie’s in real danger, than if we were all three here and safe?”

“If I worried about Blondie now,” Tuco says, choosing his words carefully. “It might come true. You see?”

“No. So I’m going to assume that you’re in need of what you always need during a storm like this, namely all the coddling I can possibly muster,” Angel says, looking rather fiercely determined. “Believe me, you’re going to get it within an inch of your life-”

The door crashes open, with a wet, soggy Blondie splashing mud everywhere as he enters. He waves at them, clearly in fine fettle. 

Then his boot skids, and he crashes to the ground with a bang. 

“…a good idea, but maybe you try it on him instead,” Tuco says. 

They clamber off the sofa, both ready to tend to the unconscious hiker; and as messy and awkward a job as it is, he’s grateful for every last second of inconvenience.

(The thing about tornadoes is, they’re such a fine catalyst for love.)


	5. something like dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is meant as a companion piece to the earlier B-side fic [dreamsight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18126596/chapters/42856454) by sybilius. This is written by deepandlovelydark, and it is one of Syb's favourites :"D

“Sometimes I dream about you,” Tuco says, his hand lightly brushing against Blondie’s arm (the habit’s too engrained now, this particular kind of showing off). “The two of you together, somewhere fine and cold. Somewhere I wouldn’t want to be…”

The hail pounding against the windows is harsh and loud; Angel Eyes has taken a worn quilt with him for protection while he feeds the fire, looking rather sweet in it. 

“It’s only dreams,” Blondie reassures him. “You know I’m here.”

“If that says anything,” Angel calls, “it’s that I need to see about getting central heating installed in this place. It’s a question I never had much cause to consider, living in New Mexico.”

“I know you’re here when I wake up, Blondie. That’s not the problem- I don’t know it when I’m sleeping, you see?”

“Ah. Hmm…” Blondie says, taking refuge in silence. Not so unforgivable. It’s a fine way his partner looks, with firelight and the strange cool reflectiveness of snow upon his face.

Angel brings back the fire shovel, with a hot coal still afire; Blondie takes a cigarillo from the box on the bedside table, lights it and tosses the coal straight back into the fire. There were a few accidents the first time he tried that, it’s a good thing the floor is made of stone.

“Do you dream about my hurting you?” Angel asks, sliding himself between them (it’s an unspoken thing, that whoever’s been up can claim the centre spot for its warmth). 

“No….”

(And that’s lucky. Angel would take that knowledge far less well than Blondie’s resignation.)

“It’s just that I’m not there at all, you know? And you’re happy all the same, and I wonder sometimes…what if you two didn’t need me?”

“Who’d finish my cigarillos?” Blondie asks, only a touch sardonically. “Can’t see Angel Eyes picking up a taste for them.”

“Blondie, that’s silly." 

"So’s what you’re worrying about. We both love you, you know that,” Blondie says; reaches over Angel Eyes to ruffle his hair. 

(Angel harrumphs, pulls the bedclothes all the way over his head.) 

“…sure, but you both scare me a little.” Tuco pats the lump under the blankets, to show no hard feelings.

“Do you miss being alone?” a voice inquires smoothly from underneath. 

“No, no! I’d miss you. I missed you so much anyway…and I’m getting on a bit, too. It’s not so easy to find a nice bedwarmer at my time of life, you know?”

“Bedfreezer more like,” Blondie pronounces. “Angel, how are you still this cold- c'mere.”

Tuco chuckles a little ruefully, as the lump shifts towards the other side of the bed (can’t be helped, if Blondie’s hot blood is always a little warmer than his own). Moves along in tandem, so Angel can still be nestled tight between them. 

“…no, well, maybe that’s what I worry. That I still need you two, more than you’d ever need me." 

"As if you could absent yourself so easily,” Angel says, with a serious expression fairly ill-suited for somebody who’d just popped out from under a quilt. “I’d be haunted by your absence, if you weren’t here, and not for what I know about you. For what I don’t. The small details I find out fresh every day, that way you tilt your head to look at Blondie, the knack you have for stirring cake batter…a positive lack of knowledge, I never could have expected to find attractive in anybody. And yet with you I do. It’s a quality to cherish.”

“You’ll have to try harder than that, to make me blush,” Tuco says (he’s enough like his partner, just not knowing how to take Angel’s sincerity sometimes.)

“Then I’ll try,” Blondie puts in. “Even if we could get by without you, doesn’t mean we’d want to.”

“Sure, sure.” He favours Blondie with one of those dry head tilts- not trying hard enough- and his partner rolls his eyes, passes him the cigarillo for a few last puffs. 

“What, you want to hear that life wouldn’t be half so comfortable without you around to keep us honest? Not knocking seven bells out of each other every time we disagree? And seeing as it’s Angel,” Blondie laughs, drily. “I’d be on the losing end of that.” 

”…what you said about making life more comfortable. Maybe I’ll settle just for that,“ Tuco murmurs, as he stubs the smoke out. "Sleep well, you two idiots.”

(It occurs to him next morning, that probably it would have made more sense if they’d had the last word. Soothed him to sleep.)

(However. By then, it’s the next morning.)


	6. hunting trip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter with the 'implied gun violence' warning. Comedy tho :)

Angel’s face is pale in the near-twilight, almost sickly; and Tuco all but bites his tongue through to keep a reassuring stillness on his own.

“It’s the shame of it more than anything,” Angel says, voice clear and controlled as if he hasn’t just been watching his blood pouring into the dirt. “I’ve been shot by better men than that.”

“Shhh. Shhh shh shhh-” which is all nonsense really, play for his singular audience; the talk will do his lover a special kind of good, distraction from pain that must be near intolerable. “Save your energy for me, Angel, won’t you do that? Don’t stress yourself.”

“Don’t make more of a thing than it deserves.” Angel’s hands tremble only slightly as he makes a dismissive gesture, which has to be a fine sign. “Time to worry about it was half an hour ago when you were tearing up your shirt and I was unconscious, this is a little belated.”

“I’m like that, though- how’d you know I tore it up?”

Prone or not, Angel’s sarcastic nod is softened only by the lust-tinged desire curving his lips. On Blondie you might even call that look coy. 

Speaking of whom…

Tuco grabs up his jacket, wraps it tightly around himself as he ventures out of the tent. Blondie’s kicking a log into the fire, with rather more viciousness than skill. 

“He’ll be okay.” 

Blondie exhales a long, long breath, slumps down on the ground so fast it looks like his long legs have given way. Tuco doesn’t try to help, just settles down companionably close. 

“Glad to hear it.” 

“I thought you would.” 

“…so tell him, would you, that the next goddamn time you two invite yourselves along on one of my camping trips, wear orange when I’m hunting?”

“I think,” Tuco says, a bit solemnly, “I think he’ll remember that from now on without a prompt, you know?”

Behind them in the tent there’s the sound of a single laugh, hurriedly broken off into a cough. 


	7. shampoo on socks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is in direct reference to [Chapter 3 of the cinematics of semantics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134666/chapters/43680959), the second half with Angel Eyes and Rose. You may wish to reread it to recall the parts of the story it references. D wrote it as commentary when Syb first wrote that chapter, so she's fond of this softness.

“You know what I hear?” Tuco asks, not looking up from the fennel. For a man who once destroyed my second-best mortar and pestle, he’s not doing so badly this time. “You sound scared, that’s what.”

“Damasked roses? I’ve hardly started.” 

“Roses make you nervous.” He taps the side of his nose, a gesture of uncertain significance. “Like me with tornadoes, or Blondie hiding whenever a Cary Grant film comes on.”

“I do no such thing!” 

Surprising. Blondie watching the late night movie is usually dead to the world, that he’s listening at all is a mild surprise.

“Yes, you do. But- you were talking about Rose, Angel.” 

“If you’ll let me continue…”

Tuco nods. Keeps grinding while I describe that night, all its small horrors and velvet-lined anxieties. It’s an active sort of listening he gifts me, shot through with slightly exaggerated reactions that belay an assiduous patience. Honed from his years of looking for openings, and weaknesses; none the less welcome for all that. 

“…you let him see Blondie? That’s not dangerous, is it?”

“I should think not.” The thought has recurred to me, often enough; will no doubt keep recurring until my death or his. Not even Rose’s would suffice- but both my lovers are as safe as my skill may make them. The rest must perforce be left to chance. “Any interest would have been purely insofar as he influenced me, Rose wouldn’t have cared about Blondie otherwise.”

“I’m glad of that.”

“…reluctantly, I suppose I have to agree,” Blondie drawls. “Not but what it wouldn’t have been memorable, having a mob boss stalking me.”

“Not so memorable,” Tuco says, inspecting his efforts. “You’d be dead very quick, _Manco-_ ”

Nobody manages to say anything during the next five minutes of his resounding laughter. My mentor taught me that love could be sincere, all-encompassing, occasionally worth dying for; had I lived and died with only her for example, I should never have discovered the absurdity inherent as well. 

Perhaps Blondie would have taught me eventually, even alone? But they come yoked together so.

Such as now: Tuco abandoning his labours to settle down on the coach, soothing his first beloved partner with kisses and spice-scented hands. The gentle, awkward movements he’ll affect, to offer space for refusals; I know now the signs of his attempts to offer comfort when he thinks it might come most needed. 

And needed it is, if Blondie’s neglect of screen for living presence is anything to go by. It hadn’t occurred to me when I began answering Tuco’s idle question, that Blondie might not see that evening as I did; that merely surviving it, neither trammelled nor crippled, represented a victory as satisfying as any of my labours- an easier thing to say, now that it’s set behind me. But each yielding touch and needed caress belays my casual relief. 

“I could- refrain.”

“Might as well keep going,” Blondie says. Slides off the couch, to adopt that well-worn position on the rug; Tuco clicks his tongue and runs fingers through brief golden highlights. “Don’t want to wonder when you’ll finish telling it.”

So I take up the thread again, without hurrying. No good in leaving a deed half-complete. 

(My mento had been _most_ particular in instilling that particular lesson.)

“…a cigarillo. You gave him a cigarillo?”

“I’d have given him a year’s supply to go away without looking at me. One of those times that even thinking about you didn’t help me- I didn’t dare.”

“Why not?” Very nearly a pout. 

“How long would you have pegged my life expectancy at, if I’d snickered at a man playing dress-up and hustling a proposition just as eagerly as we did?”

“…oooh,” Tuco says, reflectively. “I see, yes. What an awful idea- to live without laughing! I’d be sick.”

“How often did you think of him, those months?” I say curiously to Blondie. He knows I don’t mean Rose. 

His mouth twists with such captivating mockery. “Less than he’d like, more than you’d have wanted to hear- though I guess that wouldn’t bother you so much now, would it.”

“On balance. No.” 

So we go on, up to the moment of Rose perceiving my vulnerability (” _your tastes will be the death of you”;_ and no wonder I’d found Blondie’s terseness comfort). Observe with curiosity it would be useless to deny, the way the balance shifts wordlessly; for it’s now Tuco’s turn to grasp for comfort. 

“It’s all right,” Blondie says, hands against his lover’s thighs. “He was used to it, don’t forget. I knew I didn’t need to worry about him.” 

“I couldn’t have helped myself,” Tuco says, burying himself beneath the blanket. “It’d be like walking over china plates, every step I took in that house. I’m glad we have this clean one.”

Not so clean, with myself installed in it; but this is not the time to quibble. 

“…socks? Blondie, a man has just died and you complained about your socks?”

“They were the auburn ones,” Blondie says; and no good will in the world will fix the small wrong done to him that night. “It was something I could let myself think about…but he got out the bloodstains. Shampoo. It was very domestic.”

“It sounds the opposite,” Tuco says, tutting. “How you got by without me- I wonder that about you, Angel. Why don’t you come over here, let us cheer you up?”

“What makes you think I require it?” The narrator of that tale should not, surely; too much blood in it, to lay just claim to fear. 

But he ignores my tidy categorisations. “Because I want to, Angel. That’s all.”

I submit myself then, to their caresses. 

They go undeserved, but not unappreciated. 


	8. rearview mirror reflections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Syb wrote this little thing :) Not strictly a Gatehouse fic, but in the gatehouse-era. The trio heading back from a small road trip :)

Another town slides by in the near sunset.

It’s heartening, how they all look the same – _not quite, the street lights are a little dimmer here_. The corner store belongs to _Larry_! Not _Keller_ , and it’s a Pepsi town, not a Coke one. Otherwise, could be anywhere loosely north east of Wisconsin, really. 

The trees are just reaching the end of their spring blossom, settling into a heady green. It’ll be warm enough to be setting up camp out of doors soon, not just visiting – 

A short, crisp bark of laughter cuts through his reveries. Blondie smiles. _That’s right._ _Not alone on this drive_. He glances in the rearview mirror, his partner slumped across his watchful lover, hawklike profile silhouetted against the flash of the streetlights. 

“What?” Blondie asks after a minute. If we’re not going to have quiet, might as well get in on the joke. 

“Speak soft, I think he’s dropped off.”

“Mm,” Blondie drops his voice, low amid the hum of the fan, “Memory serves, he’ll be out for a while. Driving suits him that way. The sounds, the moving – back when we were on the road, meant we had gas. So there wasn’t much to worry about.”

“That makes sense,” in the mirror, Blondie watches Angel pull off one of his gloves gingerly, brush one of Tuco’s curls off his brow. Sap. He smiles a little, in spite of himself. 

“So, what were you laughing about?”

“Oh – it’s. I was thinking about the first time Tuco and I were in the back of a car, and you driving. When you got out and smashed the engine on the side of the road.”

The memory comes to Blondie in a half sickening lurch. It was hot on the edge of the border, sticky even with the roof rolled down and the wind whipping past them. _Probably was the nervous sweat I had, then._

“… _absens haeres non erit_. You’re quiet. A worse memory than I realized? Or what came after?”

“What came after was worse, yeah – I just. Hadn’t thought about that in a while. It’s all right, though,” he means it. _Been so long, by now – could it really hurt to remember it?_

“It struck a funny mood. At the time, I was so unsettled, but I’d put it upon myself to trust you. In retrospect – I’m not sure. I suppose I laughed at the absurdity of it. That it seemed a logical thing for you to do.”

“Can see how it didn’t make sense, yeah. I guess– I’m surprised you weren’t angry.”

“Oh, I was, then, as well. But as I said, I’d had it in me to trust you.”

“That really got us somewhere, huh?” Blondie mumbles, flipping the headlights to illuminate the stretch of highway before them.

“Eventually,” Angel hums, catching his eye in the mirror. _Feels like a while since we talked ancient history._ Blondie taps his fingers on the wheel. But the tightness in his chest is leaving off, and he might yet find the right words to answer the question that Angel isn’t asking. 

  
“Yeah, I mean. It’s like this. I knew what Tuco was used to– when I decided there was something new we were going to do for a while I just – I’d do something like that. Throw one over on us. Start from scratch. So it was doing something he’d understand,” Blondie chews his tongue, slightly disgusted with how calloused that sounds, “He used to do similar, when he’d just – up and vanish. Like we were tired of each other, but we’d be back.”

“…ah.”

“See, I almost wish I don’t remember, thinking like that. Sounds awful, doesn’t it?”

“I hardly think the reasoning that got me through being an assassin was much better.”

“…Fair.”

Angel can’t reach him, pinned down by a sleeping body as he is – but a moment later there’s a warm nudge at his side. Angel’s foot, slipped out of his shoe to recline lazily beside him on the center console. 

“Do you want to stop, get a motel?”

“You know I like driving in the dark. But we can if you want to.”

“Next town? I have some peculiar and fond memories, at least, of some of the motels we frequented before you wrecked that car.”

“Tch,” Blondie squeezes Angel’s foot, “Well I’ll see this as making new ones, then.”


	9. wood chopping by half-light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of D's lovely tidbits. I had to raise the rating of the fic on account of this chapter. Some light bondage/ rope-play in this, but suggestive not explicit.

“You think we should maybe help him?” 

He’s too lazy to put any real carrying power into his voice but Angel hears anyway, comes back into the bedroom with a freshly lit candlestick in hand (good fresh smelling beeswax, Wallace swaps jam for them with another monastery). Its flicker is more an accent to the sunset glow than an illumination, but it’s sufficient for them to see as well as hear the wood-chopping outside the window. 

“I think he’s contented enough.” There is as much theatrical posturing in his lover’s studied expression as in all his partner’s effort- audience viewing the actor, hawkish eyes focused on trimly-layered muscles. The white shirts Blondie favors, they’re good for catching light at a time like this, reflecting off the swinging axe. Makes it look as though he’s the source, himself…

“Oh, sure. But it’s a…hmm,” there’s no reason to trouble finishing the thought, it was more sound than words he wanted. A little sonic guidance to bring his lover into the bed, which Angel obligingly does. “Could offer- _mierda_! Aren’t you cold.”

“Wandering around unclothed can have that effect.” 

“H’m. Imagine if someone came along and looked in that window at us- I mean, besides Blondie-”

“Then it’d be their own fault for imprudence.” Angel pronounces the statement with the same dignity he chooses for philosophical debates, not a whit bothered by dignity. “Though it would surprise me, at this point- you know, I wonder how many years it would take for this place to get a good haunted reputation. What’s inevitable, in this case, might as well be encouraged-” 

“Haunted? By who, mad priests?”

“By us,” Angel says, with perfect equanity. “Not too captivating a story, naturally. Tourists would doubtless annoy your brother almost as much as myself.”

“Don’t know that I like that idea much.” His head’s on Angel’s shoulder, his eyes closed- as soon as Blondie’s finished chopping wood it’ll be all three of them alone in the dark. Beeswax and sweat and himself between, listening for the wind. “Ghosts, they’re bound to a place, aren’t they? They can’t leave.” 

“And what of that?”

“Maybe I’m not ready to be dead yet…”

“Well, reverse it then,” Angel says, almost soft. “Call the whole world around us dead, and just us alive, would you prefer that?”

No use asking him of all men, not to take the occasional morbid fancy. “Are you asking what I’d choose?’

“By way of a night’s debate, we’ve done worse.” 

“I liked it better when you were teasing Blondie about his taste for monster movies.” 

“…ah. But you might call this a related topic.” 

He might have shifted away then, turned his back. Pulled up a hand to stop the gentle loop tightening around his wrists, the slender black silks that are such familiar visitors to their bed. 

“One of those is just for fun, though- movies are all fiction. You drive your car up and you throw popcorn at the screen when the lovers get too soppy, that’s not the same as what you’re talking about.”

“And what am I talking about?” His lover’s voice is coming quick now, even breathless- he can envision the restrained, tight pleasure etched into those thin cheeks and quivering mustache. A stray droplet splashes down against his lips; it tastes of sea-salt, and something more animal than that. 

“Something that isn’t- that’s not so, but that’s here when nothing else is,” there’s always fear wrapped up in the ropes, and tonight it’s making his head buzzy, drowsiness as defense. “If we’re all three of us damned-”

“Yes?” A sudden stillness in the growing web. 

Tuco sighs, feels out with his bound hands for the trembling body he knows to be there. “It shouldn’t feel this much like peace, should it?”

“Have to agree, there.” 

Broader shoulders and longer hair, than what he was expecting- when did the sound of the axe stop, when he’d been listening for that so intently?

No matter. No matter at all. 

The way his partners swallow him up together, there are worse ways to spend an eternity. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and thoughts always appreciated :)


End file.
